[R] [OT] Re: umlauts in Rd files

[Prof Brian Ripley]

As this is a proper name, is not what is `right' what the person concerned 
prefers (if known)?

Guessing on their behalf is not unambiguous: even if you know someone is, 
say, German, their surname may not be or vice versa.

People have even written to me to `correct' the spelling of `Box and 
Muller' in my books.  (Long ago a then colleague checked with Muller 
himself that was his preferred spelling.)

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:

> Spencer Graves <spencer.graves <at> pdf.com> writes:
>> (This may not be relevant, but Google just gave me 788,000 hits for
>> "moebius" and 750,000 for "mobius".)  Perhaps one of our German
>> contributors could tell us which they prefer.
>
> As you asked for it:  The former is correct, and the second is a misspelling. So
> there is no choice but simply "right" and "wrong".
>
> The only alternative to the full '8-bit' spelling with an Umlaut is the
> 'transcribed 7-bit' form of replacing the 'two dots over the vowel' with an
> 'appended e after the vowel'.  As in Maechler, or in the From: field above.
>
> The problem is that most of the world simply drops the dots: E.g. the comparison
> of 'Wolfgang Hardle' and 'Wolfgang Haerdle' at scholar.google.com shows that the
> correct form is (barely) leading with a narrow 227 to 220.   My PhD dissertation
> is archived in the French Bibliotheque Nationale under Eddelbuttel as I opted
> for the correct 8-bit form (using LaTeX) which got of course transcribed into the
> incorrect Eddelbuttel.  Some lessons are learned the hard way ...
>
> Hope this helps,  Dirk
>
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-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595